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Interesting.Being the first born of three children,I do not think the study applies to my family.From what I've heard from relatives,my parents were delighted to have a girl first.I think it actually brought my parents together more,since my dad did take an active role in rearing me from an early age as much as possible.

On the flip side,my paternal grandparents disliked me being the first born,or at least that is was my impression.Considering I cant carry on the family name,I am not viewed the "first true grandchild" of the family.The same goes for my older cousins.In that aspect,I think it is ingrained into our society that boys should come first.Back in the old days,boys really had to come first out of necessity to run the family farm or business,and we just havent gotten away from that.(IMO)

Treat your stepmother with respect Pantera, or you'll be sleeping in the streets!!

I suppose another factor is the family name. If the family is "Smith" then carrying on the family name is not so important... but my family is one of the smallest and rarest in the world...there are only something like nine individuals, counting myself, my father and my grandfather, so in this case a son would be very important to carry on the name, otherwise the family would go extinct.

Very interesting. But I'm not sure I buy it. These researchers seem to be looking at two trends and saying they correlated. Its like what a friend of mine believes: Skin cancer is on the rise, so is the use of sun screen. Sun screen cause skin cancer. Logical but wrong. Unless I see the data and research I'm just going to blow it off as cocktail fact.

In my own family I have to Uncles who have three daughters. One is divorced and one is not. The one who's divorced is divorced because his ex-wife is a drug addicted. The other uncle has a more stable and loving relationship then my parents (which is a pretty good marriage).

"I'm sick and tried of these motherfrakkking Sith on this motherfrakkker plane!"
Mace Windu - Episode 2.5: Sith on a Plane

Actually a scientific study over a good few years has recently been published stating that sunscreen is effectively useless against skin cancer. It was on the BBC news here a week or so back. Sunscreen stops you burning up but doesn't stop the damage.

Boys and girls, if they want to look at sexism take a look at the toy industry which iterates stereotypes to parents rather than setting a boundless arena for children to grow up with. I can't go into my reasoning because it woulkd be deleted by over zealous moderating staff but suffice to say there is a demographic that fits the mold of the consumer the toy industry likes to please. It makes it easier to keep on shoving the same stereotypes down kids throats and creates niche markets which are easier for them to account for and think about in the simplest terms.
It doesn't rock the boat too much and guarantees sales fro recognisable products that have been selling for half a century or more. Boys will play with psuedo destructive toys and sports equipment and girls will have pretty flowery pink mini replica kitchens and baby rearing acoutrements. Once these toys are shaken up and all toys are designated unisex then the bariers of sexual stereotyping will begin to crumble.
The far right can try all they want to maintain the mysoginistic chauvanistic lores, but sometime the world will change and it will be children who make the changes.

Hmmm, very interesting article. You think the opposite would be true, that having a boy would mean that you are more likely to divorce. Working in the educational field, I can tell you as children from the ages of 5 to 9, girls tend to be more conformist and obey while boys are more apt to be independent and listen not quite as well as girls do. In my limited teaching experience, I have never had any problems with female students. You raise your voice with them and they listen. However, it is always seems that in every classroom there are 2 to 3 students who will give you a run for your money, and 90% are males.

Going back to the study, I cannot think of one reason why the divorce rates are higher. The article did mention that a divorce may rob a son of a badly needed father figure and that is one reason why some couples hold off on getting one, but I really can't see why this anamoly is true.

"The dark side clouds everything. Impossible to see, the future is. But this I am sure of - do their duty the Jedi will." --Yoda from Attack of the Clones.

I can't be convinced that the sex of the child determines the likelihood of marital failure - at least in North American culture. A 5 percent increase in divorce rate for families that have a daughter is minimal - and likely within the accepted rate for "scientific error", making this find thought provoking - but not significant. Interesting though that more daughters increase the number. My wife and I have one of each, and the boy has required much more energy to supervise than my daughter did as his age. She was the mildest, happiest and most pleasant child ..... until she turned 4. Now she knows enough to be dangerous.

It's easy to imagine how having multiple daughters and no sons would have an enormous impact on the stress level in a household if you're living within a culture that doesn't place equal weight on the value of the genders. I can see divorces being more likely in that case (which likely explains the skew on the numbers coming in from other parts of the world).

Well, I didn't read the article, but I do remember when I found out my girlfriend was pregnant with a boy, I was happy. I stuck it out with her, because I wanted to be there for my son. We broke up after his second birthday. Now my son is 12, and I'm going to pick him up this weekend. It seems that his mother is living in a neighborhood with a lot of Gang activity. I also remember as a child after my parents divorced wanting to live with my dad. My brother and I reached a certain age where my mom felt she could no longer handle us, and she sent us to live with our dad. My sisters however, stayed with my mom.